Fantasy Grounds automation v Foundry MIDI QOL etc

Hi everyone!

The FG sale has me a bit intrigued! I'm a Foundry user (mainly D&D 5e) using the importer and set up with a fair bit of automation via the MIDI and Chris Pre Mades modules. I do get nervous around version upgrades etc and trying to keep the modules aligned. Very interested in FG, but what I've been trying to establish (and struggling tbh) is what level of automation comes out of the box v the above Foundry modules and what needs to be done via FG extensions. Are the extensions similar to modules - do they go out of date?

The above modules prompt saving rolls, automatically add conditions and then automate advantage/disadvantage, additional damage etc.

Appreciate you'll only really be able to answer that if you've used the above modules in Foundry, but I figured there might be a couple of you out there that have used both.

A couple of other questions as well:
Is there a similar extension that provides animations?
I think I've read there isn't a native music player in FGU - this needs to be done via Discord?

Thanks

Caveat - my experience in FGU is mainly as a GM whereas my experience in Foundry is primarily as a player.

The level of automation supported in FGU does vary from system to system but 5E has great automation out of the box.

As this is primarily maintained by SmiteWorks themselves, it all keeps working through major releases which has not been my experience with Foundry. Where extensions are needed they are usually kept up to date but obviously this depends on the individual developer. So yes, extensions are a bit like Foundry modules, they can go out of date and they do need the author to keep them maintained when major changes roll out. But the core automation features are built in and you will find you may not need extensions at all.

Saving rolls? Yes, automated. Cast a fireball on 20 orcs - select them as targets, cast the spell - FGU will automate 20 saving rolls, keep track of who saves and who fails. Roll damage - it applies half damage to those who made their saves and full to those who didn't.

Conditions? You usually have to apply a condition by hand but spell or power descriptions will usually have a button to click to apply it, and players can do it themselves so the GM doesn't have to do all of it. The condition is then tracked automatically with durations etc.. When a condition applies and grants advantage/disadvantage FGU will apply those automatically eg prone will grant advantage to melee attackers and disadvantage to ranged attackers.

My experience is that FGU handles more out of the box, without extensions, and does so more gracefully than the Foundry modules. I've certainly found its handling more stable and reliable because it is built in core functionality of FGU. And indeed it is usually better at remembering all the conditions, bonuses and penalties than we are; sometimes someone rolls and we have to back-track "why did I have disadvantage?" (because your foe is prone and you're shooting them).

Stuff like what number you do a crit on, your crit bonus damage dice, all of this sort of stuff is on the character sheet and automated, and if you buy the PHB etc. most of the class abilities, spells, feats, etc. will have all the automation set up for you already. Players can drag and drop their healing spell dice roll onto whoever they are healing and FGU will handle all the record-keeping - really cuts down on GM load.

The stuff that needs extension tends to be more at the "fiddly detail" level. SmiteWorks say they aim for 80% automation, and I'd say for 5E it's better than that out of the box. But a few things - Halfling's luck, the Wizard ability to reroll 1's on some elemental damage, that sort of thing may need handling with an extension to automate. These extensions are available in the forge and in my experience are well maintained. The big one that needs an extension to handle gracefully is Druid wildshape (and polymorph etc), but Rob2E team's extension for this is great.


Animations - not really much of a thing in FGU at the moment. They've recently extended the file types to include webp and webm files so animations are possible, but there aren't any extensions as yet for shooting a purple eldritch blast at your foe. Conversely, there's something very satisfying indeed about dumping a whole bunch of damage dice onto a foe's token and seeing them take the damage :-)

Native music players - FGU has a soundboard system which by default maps onto Syrinscape sounds. So a lot of us do sound that way. For example I can have a mood playing, trigger a one-shot growl by hand or have automation set up to automatically play a wolf growl when a wolf does damage. I have spell noises set up for my PCs spell casts, so their cure wounds spells sound different from their spiritual weapon - there are packs of sound links available that set up the relevant triggers so you don't even have to do any work to set it up.

It is theoretically possible to use this same system to play sounds via other methods - check the forum - but honestly the integration with Syrinscape is so good it's hard not to recommend just going that route.

FGU currently lacks environmental sound triggers that differ from player to player - no hearing the ticking time bomb when your token gets inside 10 squares of it. So that's something you'd notice the lack of if you make extensive use of that. Personally I'm fine with everyone hearing the same sounds and having a combination of the automated triggers and the really well thought out soundboard system. The soundboard allows you to group sounds by what map you have up, what story you have open, and what NPCs are on the tracker.

So if you have a forest map (and you've set up some forest noises) and some orcs on the tracker (and have set up some orc noises or bought the monster manual sound links pack) you will be presented with the forest noises and the orc noises in your soundboard, and even triggered noises for the orc attacks. Oh no, suddenly an ogre appears - drop the NPC onto the tracker and suddenly all the Ogre noises also appear on your soundboard.

I used to have to set up a Streamdeck with buttons to trigger noises which took prep each session - now I just link a few suitable moods, SFX loops and music for the maps I'm likely to use and rely on FGU to bring up all the monster noises. It's the best interface for sound control that I've used in a VTT.

The actual sounds play via Syrinscape - players just need a browser window open in the background to your Syrinscape game. Or you can do it through a Discord bot if you prefer.

Hope thats of some help?

Cheers, Hywel

Thanks that's really helpful.

Also note that the demo install is fully featured, the only restriction on it is that you can't have players connect to it without a license. So you can do all your evaluation without spending anything. And Smiteworks has a straightup 30 day refund policy, if purchased through the store here on the website. Steam is different.

I suggest you try FG out. Purchase if you want to try with players (edit: or want to make sure you get in on the sale) (and then take advantage of the 30 day FG Store full refund return policy if needed).
To get you started fast, I suggest you take one or two free DM classes at the FG Academy.
Also be aware, the interface is not intuitive for many people, don't fight the system, take a class and use the manual :) Fantasy Grounds Unity User Manual - Fantasy Grounds Customer Portal - Confluence (atlassian.net)

You can get some idea of what's possible via
https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassia...ced+Automation
which is the base game documentation re: effects coding.

For non-base-game automation of 5E, one of the more popular extensions would be
https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/155/view ("Better Combat Effects Gold"); the forum thread ( https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...Combat-Effects ) contains a link to documentation in PDF form ( https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...4&d=1713734312 ). You can do a lot with it.

For what it's worth, if you want to get a sense of what extensions are out there (it's non-exhaustive, but most actively maintained extensions will be there at this point)

https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/

You can filter the product type to "Extension", you can filter the rulesets to "Any Ruleset" + "5E Compatible", and if you want you can also filter the price to "Free".

It's been a while since I ran a D&D 5E campaign (currently running PF2e), but when I was, I had working automation (between base game + various extensions) for stuff like
- pretty much all saves, including automatically rolling concentration checks and death saves
- item-related effects being activated or deactivated when the item was equipped or de-equipped
- items rolling recharges with a long rest
- factoring in resistances, immunities, vulnerabilities
- spells could be set up with ongoing effects and e.g. at-start/end-of-turn saves
- wildshape / polymorph effects, including properly blending ability scores as well as proper handling of form reversion at HP 0 and token swapping

and a fair bit of other stuff.

Off-hand, for me probably the most head-scratching omission in terms of not being supported included tracking movement expenditure (FGU lets you specify 'speed', and it has a ruler and a movement plotting tool where you can propose multiple waypoints and it'll report the total distance, but there's no /tracking/ of expended movement; which might be useful in cases where you have players that like to move a little bit, do something, move a little bit, do something). The other was that the 5E ruleset doesn't automatically factor in disadvantage for long range, IIRC, despite being able to compute range to target and ranged weapons being set up with range brackets.

(To contrast that with, say, PF2e -- that ruleset *does* automatically factor in range increments and apply an appropriate modifier. That ruleset has its own, hefty suite of effects supported if you want to code up something -- e.g. https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassia...PFRPG2+Effects . For PF2e, the main irritation omission from my POV is that it doesn't yet automate flanking; but I added a fake 'cantrip' to character sheets that lets players just mark their target as flat-footed/off-guard for the next attack roll so they can just apply it themselves with a button press.)

FGU extensions use Lua scripts, so you can do some interesting things if you know that language, as well. To give a quite non-trivial example, https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/1180/view ("Nation Builder") is a highly specialized extension that was written to ease using the kingdom-management rules in the "Kingmaker" adventure path for Pathfinder.

There is a large learning curve to FGU for sure. But once mastered it makes life as the DM much simpler. With extensions even better. There are even supplemental modules which can give even more defined power to modules you use from WOTC (PHB, DMG, MM, MtoM, etc.).

Just beware...

EXTENSIONS = RISK

They can and will be broken by FGU updates, other extensions conflicting, etc. So must be maintained by authors and tracked by users (forum threads usually come attached to FORGE entries which no extension user should ever ignore or not have notifications setup for when they get updated).

Best course of action - 30 day money back for unlimited license (one I would recommend for GM then players play for free with demo) - then buy modules you usually play with. Take that 30 days to figure out how to work it and if you like it. Once you UNDERSTAND the raw FGU with the paid for modules of your choice - then you can figure out if you want the paid for supplemental modules to them. Extensions you check for free ones first to solve your issue, then if you can't find one of those look to writing your own extension to cover the need, and if you don't want to do that - only then look at paid extensions. Only the GM needs to have all these things not the players.

Also discord had plenty of info for the "Fantasy Grounds" server, "Fantasy Grounds Academy" server, and others.

Since SlientRuin decided to speakup, I'll push him under the bus. His Generic Actions extension has support in it for setting up animations when spells and attacks occur. You'll have to read through the forum and put a little effort into making it work, but honestly it isn't very hard. He does dislike users though, since they never find any bugs for him to fix and he ends up doing it himself. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...ity-5E-ruleset

Also, both DiabloBob's Critically Awesome Essentials & One Click Druid will support animated webm files being used and allow you to drop spell effects to the map. And pretty sure that B9's Spell Tokens extension will support the use of webm files for animation.
https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/1575/view - Critically Awesome Essentials
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...kens-Extension - B9's Spell Tokens Extension

Both DiabloBob's and B9's extensions have the player dragging the image onto the map from their character sheet's action tab. SilientRuin's has a bit more automation where once it's setup, you cast and the effect occurs. Choose your poison and what works for your table.